| Subramanian Swamy | |
|---|---|
| President, Janata Party | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 1989 |
|
| Minister of Commerce and Industry | |
| In office 1990–1991 |
|
| Prime Minister | Chandra Shekhar Singh |
| Minister of Law and Justice (Additional Charge) |
|
| In office 1990–1991 |
|
| Prime Minister | Chandra Shekhar Singh |
| Member of the Rajya Sabha | |
| In office 1988–1994 |
|
| In office 1974–1976 |
|
| Member of the Lok Sabha | |
| In office 1980–1984 |
|
| In office 1977–1979 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 15 September 1939 Mylapore, Chennai, British India |
| Political party | Janata Party |
| Spouse(s) | Dr. Roxna Swamy |
| Alma mater | University of Delhi Indian Statistical Institute Harvard University |
| Profession | Economist Professor Author Politician |
| Religion | Hindu |
| Website | Official Website |
Subramanian Swamy (born 15 September 1939 in Chennai, India sometimes spelt Subramaniam Swamy) is an Indian politician, academic and an economist.[1] He is the President of the Janata Party of India. He also presently serves as chairman[2] of the SCMS Board of Governors of the SCMS Group of Educational Institutions in Kerala.
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Subramanian Swamy was born in Mylapore, Chennai, India. His father Sitaram Subramanian[3] is from Madurai, Tamil Nadu who retired as Secretary to Government of India.[4]. His mother is from Tamil speaking family from Trichur, Kerala.
He attended Hindu College, University of Delhi, from where he earned his Bachelor Honours degree in Mathematics. He studied for his Masters degree in Statistics at the Indian Statistical Institute. He then went to study at Harvard University on a full Rockefeller scholarship. He received a Ph.D. in Economics in 1965. His thesis adviser was Nobel Laureate Simon Kuznets[5].
For some time, while completing his dissertation in 1963, he worked at the United Nations Secretariat in New York as an Assistant Economics Affairs Officer. He subsequently worked as a resident tutor at Lowell House at Harvard.
In 1964, Swamy joined the faculty of economics at Harvard and since then has taught in the Department of Economics.[6] He began as an assistant professor, and in 1969 became an associate professor. When he was Associate Professor at Harvard University, he was invited by Noble Laureate Amartya Sen[3] for a position at Delhi School of Economics (DSE). He accepted the offer and came back. However, when he arrived for the position at DSE, his appointment was cancelled due to his views on the nuclear capabilities for India and market friendly attitude.[3] Thereafter, he moved to the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and alongside to his teaching duties, he took special interest in talking to the hostel students. From 1969 to 1991, he was a Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He was removed from the position by its board of Governors in the early 1970s but was legally reinstated in the late 1990s by the Supreme Court of India. He continued in the position until 1991 when he resigned to become a cabinet minister. He served on the Board of Governors of the IIT, Delhi (1977–80), and on the Council of IITs (1980–82).
He taught economics courses in summer session at Harvard [7] until 2011. In December 2011, the Faculty Council of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences removed his course from the Harvard Summer School course offerings in response to a controversial article he wrote, effectively ceasing his employment at Harvard.[8]
Swamy's start of political career was dramatic as is his whole life. It started with his involvement in Jaiprakash Narayan's Sarvodaya movement, which was an apolitical movement but which formed the foundation of the creation of Janta Party later.[9] The then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi discredited him as 'Santa Claus with unrealistic ideas'. As a result he was expelled from Indian Institute of Technology. This marked his begining of his political career as staunch opponent of Indira Gandhi and right wing political party Jansangh sent him to Rajya Sabha - the upper house of Indian Parliament.[3]
He was elected Member of Parliament 5 times between 1974 and 1999. He has twice represented the city of Mumbai North East during 1977 and 1980, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the Parliament.[3]
During the period of emergency, he fled to America and become the spokesperson of opposition in USA. In 1976 when emergency was still in force and arrest warrant was issued in his name he come to parliament to attend the session and managed to escape India attending the session. This act made him hero in the eyes of opposition parties.[3]
He was one of the founding members of the Janata Party and has been its president since 1990.[3]
During 1990 and 1991 Swamy was a member of the Planning Commission of India and Cabinet Minister of Commerce and Law of India. During this period he created the blueprint for economic reforms in India under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar which was later carried out in 1991 by Manmohan Singh, then Finance Minister under leadership of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao.[10] The current Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh recently stated that Dr. Swamy was the first to envisage and articulate the need for reforms in India.[11][2]
Between 1994 and 1996, he held the position of "Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade" (equivalent to the rank of a cabinet minister) under the P. V. Narasimha Rao government.[3] Dr. Swamy has been subject to several defamation cases. He is known to argue these cases himself without the agency of lawyers. In October 2004, he along with other members of the erstwhile Janata Party established the Rashtriya Swabhiman Manch to oppose the policies of the ruling UPA
He is known for his efforts in normalizing relations between China and India. In 1981, he persuaded Deng Xiaoping[12] to open the Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet to the Hindu pilgrims from India.[13] He became the first Indian on the reopening to visit Kailash and Mansarovar in 1981. In 1990–1991, he was a minister in the Chandra Shekhar cabinet and was in charge of the Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Law and Justice.
In his speeches and articles, Dr Swamy has expressed his admiration for Israel, and has credited its retaliatory capacity for its ability to survive in a hostile Arab environment. He made pioneering efforts at establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.
In November 2008, Subramanian Swamy wrote the first of five letters to PM Manmohan Singh seeking permission to prosecute A. Raja in regards to the 2G spectrum scam.[14] However, Singh took no action, leading Swamy to file a case on his own in the Supreme Court of India regarding the matter, which then asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to produce a detailed report on the matter.[15] He further called on the Indian government to re-auction the 2G spectrum without the involvement of Communications Minister Kapil Sibal.[16]
Swamy has raised allegations that Sonia Gandhi's two sisters Anushka and Nadia have received sixty percent of the kickbacks in the 2G spectrum scam, amounting to Rs.18,000 crores each.[17] On 15 April 2011, he filed a 206-page long petition with PM Singh seeking permission to prosecute Gandhi. In the petition, he claimed to have strong evidence of corrupt acts committed by Gandhi as early as 1972; he also raised doubts regarding her acquisition of Indian citizenship.[18] At a lecture on corruption given on 29 May 2011, he again repeated his allegation against Sonia Gandhi, saying she has Rs.1 lakh crore stashed abroad.[19] Most of Swamy's letters to the prime minister regarding this matter are not supported by proof, but he is not defensive about his allegations, stating: "I am writing to the prime minister, I am not holding a press conference. The PM has agencies available to him, they can investigate. My job is to bring things to his notice." Also, "They say I have no proof. Rubbish! As if on other things, they always have proof."[20]
In response to the 2011 Mumbai bombings, he wrote an editorial in Daily News and Analysis (DNA) claiming that "Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus". He then set out a programme for dealing with this alleged threat, including repealing Article 370 of the Constitution of India (which granted special autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir), removing the Gyanvapi Mosque at Kashi Vishwanath Temple and other mosques allegedly built atop Hindu temples, disenfranchising non-Hindus who refuse to acknowledge their Hindu ancestry, prohibiting conversion from Hinduism to other religions, and annexing part of Bangladesh in retaliation for Bangladeshi illegal immigration in India.[21] Swamy had written a similar column in The New Indian Express after the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
His column provoked a variety of reactions. His house was attacked by people alleged to be Congress party workers.[22] Minorities Council of Maharashtra Vice Chairman Abraham Mathai and National Commission for Minorities chairman Wajahat Habibullah accused him of violating Indian Penal Code Section 153A.[23][24] New Delhi law student Shehzad Poonawala attempted to lodge an FIR against him at Defence Colony police station, but was disallowed by the officer on duty.[24] DNA published two hostile response columns by Rakesh Sharma and Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr. calling him a "Hindu Taliban", "maverick", and "Zionist" in response to his views.[25][26]
Some students at his alma mater Harvard University, where he also teaches economics in the summer school, accused him of stoking communalism and circulated a petition calling on the university to fire him and publicly repudiate his remarks. Two PhD students, Umang Kumar and Sanjay Pinto, started an online petition asking for the removal of courses taught by Dr Swamy, which received more than 450 signatures from students and faculty.[27][28] Adam Kissel, on behalf of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, wrote in a letter to Harvard that a disciplinary investigation against him would be inappropriate for an academic institution dedicated to intellectual freedom, represented a threat to free speech, and could lead to self-censorship by other faculty members.[29]
In response to the petition, Donald H. Pfister, dean of Harvard Summer School, stated that the school would "give this matter our serious attention", and decided to stand by its instructor.[22] On Tuesday, 6 December 2011, the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted to exclude Subramanian Swamy's summer school courses from its catalog.[30][31][32] The Op-Ed was considered more to be a case of hate speech rather than free speech. 'I was persuaded... that the views expressed in Dr Swamy's op-ed piece amounted to incitement of violence instead of protected political speech,' Philosophy Department Chair Sean D Kelly wrote in an e-mail to the Crimson.[33] Comparative Religion Professor Diana Eck said, "Swamy's op-ed [piece] clearly crosses the line by demonising an entire religious community and calling for violence against their sacred places".[34] Swamy described the move as "nothing serious", saying "non-economists at Harvard don't like my views on how to protect India".[35]
He is well known for his critical views against the Government of Tamil Nadu and against the Aryan versus Dravidian divisive views of E.V.R. Ramaswamy.
He is staunch detractor of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.[36][37]
He obtained Supreme Court Stay against the implementation of Sethu Samuthiram Shipping Channel project (SSSCP). He believes that it would hurt the sentiments of people who believe that this shallow land connecting between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka was built by Rama approximately 1,260,000 years ago. He strongly opposes the implementation of SSSCP citing that implementing this scheme may affect the sentiments of Hinduism. He wrote letters to Prime Minister of India in June 2009 asking him to stop the project.[38]
Swamy is married to Dr. Roxna Swamy (a Parsi.[39] ), an advocate at the Supreme Court of India. He has two daughters, Gitanjali Swamy and Suhasini Haider, the latter a journalist at CNN-IBN.[40] His brother-in-law is Jewish, his son-in-law Muslim, his sister-in-law Christian, and his wife Parsi.[27]
Subramanian Swamy is a published author of several books, research papers and journals. A complete list of papers, books and journals is included below to which he is the author.